Her Fighting Soul
by Light The Darkness contest
Summary: Bella visits her grandmother and is visited herself. A boy, a girl, and their brief love. An entry in the Light the Darkness Contest.


Contest Entry for the Light The Darkness Contest

Title: Her Fighting Soul

Pairing: Edward/Bella

Rating: M

Summary: Bella visits her grandmother and is visited herself. A boy, a girl, and their brief love. An entry in the Light the Darkness Contest.

Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.

Word Count: 3763

1.

"Hi, Gran," I said. I shook out the worn flannel blanket on the cool, wet grass and plopped down on it. "How's it going?"

I stretched out, my head near the gravestone. My bones lined up with Gran's, six feet below me. I gazed at the sky, the wet-wool gray clouds oozing overhead. It would probably drizzle, then clear around midday.

"Jess is still being weird. She's… well, I hardly ever see her anymore—she's hanging out with Lauren now. And Lauren's a bitch. Sorry, I know you don't like that kinda language, but it's true."

I sat up again, unsettled, and pulled my knees to my chest. I pulled at a loose thread of embroidery on my skirt and wrapped the black string around my pinkie. I pulled on the thread until my finger turned white. It snapped and I let it flutter to the ground.

"I don't need, or even want, everyone to like me. Just… someone, I guess."

I pulled my little notebook from my purse and dug around until I found a pen. I opened to a blank page, determined to pour my feelings out into words and drawings. My heart ached, pained and heavy, but I just felt so empty. Drained, I guess, is a better word. The harder I tried to force the words, the farther away they seemed. They darted away like the lightning bugs I'd always been too uncoordinated to ever catch.

I sighed. A lump had been burning in my throat for days, weeks, months. The urge to cry. I couldn't let it go, get the release of tears; neither was I able to repress it enough that it didn't consciously bother me.

"What's it… like? Up in Heaven? I bet… nothing hurts."

Rain pitter-pattered down, straight down, in heavy, sweet drops. I nodded to myself. I knew there was nothing and no one after this life.

"I'll see you next Saturday, Gran."

I gathered my things and made my way back to my truck.

2.

Another Saturday, another silent, awkward breakfast with my father. Another afternoon at Gran's grave.

"I can't seem to make him understand."

I sighed. It was too quiet. I dug around in my bag until I found my earbuds and MP3 player. I twisted the jack around until the sound came through, then pinched my fingers around the wire. I closed my eyes.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My eyes flew open and I jerked upright. For the first time since I started coming to the cemetery, I didn't feel alone. I searched the small plot, but there was no one.

Just as soon as the feeling came, it was gone. A breeze blew between the gravestones, cool and soft.

3.

Fall was swooping in. There were fewer and fewer sunny days, and most started with rain overnight. I needed to wear tights under my long, swishy skirts again.

I was in the cemetery, reading my English Lit assignment aloud to Gran. I peeked over the top of the page, looking at the sky. It was more than gray today—black and blue whorls twisted and writhed above me. The clouds were bruised. A rare thunderstorm threatened.

I eased my seagull feather-bookmark back in between the pages. It was time to go.

I was folding my blanket again. Something flashed in the corner of my eye. Lightning?

I dropped the blanket. Standing at the edge of the woods that bordered the cemetery on the south side, was a boy. He stood, gazing directly at me, with his hands in his pockets.

My heart beat faster. He took one step toward me, then another, and another. He never looked where he was going, keeping his eyes on mine the entire time. He had long legs, wrapped in plain, black pants. His shoulders were broad, and I couldn't believe I noticed that.

The wind whipped my hair around my face, and I shoved it back behind my ears. My hands were shaking.

"Hello," he said, his voice a sigh. I couldn't speak. His eyes… they were green, but not. Somehow. Staring into them, I felt like I'd gone over a bridge that arched just so—a flip-flop, the bottom dropping out. Something sweet, like the sarsaparilla Gran used to bottle in her cellar, seeped into my nose.

He spoke again.

"Do not forget. This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet."

Everything—everything I hadn't been feeling for the past however-long—crashed into me. Nerves, hope, desire, longing, happiness, excitement, sadness, pain. Fear.

I fainted dead away.

4.

I was warm, but damp. An unpleasant, unusual combination here. I tried to sit up, and groaned. My shoulder was stiff.

Sarsaparilla.

I bolted upright, ignoring the pain in my side. I was in my bed at home, tucked in, still in my clothes. I dashed to the window and threw back the limp, white sheers. My truck wasn't in the driveway.

How did I get home? Where was... Who was that boy?

I could still smell it, that sweet smell. Him. A chill snuck down my spine, past my pounding heart and into the pit of my stomach.

A spot the size of a silver dollar tingled on my forehead, like someone had rubbed a dab of novocaine there. I touched it, just brushing the pad of my middle finger between my eyebrows. It was cold. Burning cold.

5.

I bit my lip as I walked through the cemetery next Saturday, blanket clutched at my chest. My heartbeat, which never seemed to calm down entirely in the past week, was a brisk trot. I wound my way through the graves to Gran's.

Strange. This place had never felt creepy or scary. And it didn't now. But it wasn't the same, wasn't just a smallish, perpetually empty park anymore. The sleepy quality was gone. The graveyard was as alive as I was.

It was one of those days so gorgeous, I sometimes forgot nine months of rain loomed; the kind of day I tried hard to remember when it felt like I'd never be dry again. A few trees were turning. Reds and golds, like a childhood imagination-memory of Aslan's mane. Leaves fell, swaying like hammocks, and kissed the Earth at the bottom of their descent. The air was crisp, cool; gusts of true cold rushing down from Canada. Yeah, winter was coming. But it wasn't here, not yet.

"Hi, Gran." I looked around. "What's new?"

I shook out my blanket, looking this way and that. I set my bag down, but before I could begin the pretense of opening my book to read, I felt it. I whirled around.

He was standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets.

I stared at him, at his preternatural eyes. His reddish hair rustled in the breeze.

"Hello?" I cleared my throat. "Hello."

He gazed back at me, but his eyes narrowed just slightly.

"No more Shakespeare today?"

He shook his head. "Are you going to faint again?"

"I don't think so."

He walked toward me. Floated more than walked, really. It was whisper quiet when he spoke again.

"My name is Edward."

"I'm Bella."

The corner of his mouth crooked up. He was just a couple feet away from me now. I was chilled.

"Would you, um, like to sit?" I gestured toward the blanket. He moved past me, dropping down. I knelt next to him and opened my mouth.

Who are you? How did I get home last week? Why are you here? What the hell kind of creeper hangs out in graveyards and accosts…um, other creepers hanging out in graveyards? Shit.

"Uh…so you like Hamlet, huh?"

"It has a certain appeal."

His hands were resting on his knees. His skin was sort of luminous, like, radiant. But it was so subtle, I hadn't noticed it until now. The contrast against his dark pants was stark. Not glowing. Vaguely pearlescent. What would it feel like? What…?

My hand, pinkish compared to his, reached out. My stomach fluttered. I stroked the back of his hand. Warmth. Comfort. Zinging, electric excitement.

We both gasped. He disappeared.

I gazed at the space where he'd been sitting until I realized I was shivering.

6.

I sat down in my desk chair. My head was spinning; my thoughts swam.

A motion in the corner of my eye. I yelped and scrambled back—but it was just Herma, my snail. Deep breath. It's just a snail.

I took a little spritz bottle and carefully misted it, then threw some turtle food into its little terrarium. Herma was beautiful. Its shell was a rich brown, swirled through with a yellowy color—except for a bright white starburst in the center. I'd found Herma on my front step a month ago, its shell broken, and body dried out. I filled in the crack in its shell with plaster, buffing it down to be clean and even. I nursed Herma back to health, and now it's my favorite study-time companion. I kind of want to assign it a better pronoun, though.

I was putting the baggie of turtle food away. The room was colder, and I smelled something sweet. Sweet, and spicy, and…mint?

He was behind me. I knew he was, and I didn't know how. How I knew, or how he was there. But he was. He definitely was.

I swallowed, hard. I put the treats away, then sat at my desk. I refused to look over my shoulder. I slogged through Calc until the chill receded, and my heart calmed down.

7.

I lay awake in bed. A thousand thoughts, thin and sharp, scattered themselves in my mind.

Edward, Edward, Edward. What was Edward? Because he wasn't…normal. I mean, he disappeared. And…I felt him, even though I couldn't see him. What did that mean? How did he appear out of nowhere like that, and disappear into the same? Where did he go when he did?

What was Edward?

A tingle tripped up my spine. Then I felt the chill. I relaxed, calming down even as my excitement grew. It was paradoxical—but natural.

"Hi, Edward," I told the ceiling.

"Well, the cat's out of the bag now, isn't it?"

I closed my eyes. I knew he was sitting next to me. The mattress didn't shift around, and I wasn't even surprised. I breathed in his sarsaparilla scent and let the calm descend. Everything seemed simple now. One boy, one girl, one narrow twin bed.

"My name is Edward Masen," he said. I looked at him, at his glowing-ember green eyes and serious expression. His clothes were the same as they'd been the last times I'd seen him.

He reached out, but froze. He clenched his jaw and kept going. A touch, like suede warmed by wearing, slid from my temple to my jaw. Softly rough, broken-in, somehow aged. Pressure, but no force, no weight.

The sensation disappeared, though he didn't move. He sighed.

"And I died of the Spanish Influenza in Chicago, 1918."

Edward diffused, faded. He shut his eyes tight, groaning, and was gone. All that was left of him was a powdery coolness coating my cheek.

8.

I was distracted in school that week. I even forgot to give the wrong answer in Calc. I hadn't seen Edward in days, though I'd felt him over and over. Behind me, but never there when I whirled around. Next to me in bed, but gone when I opened my eyes.

Or maybe not gone. Maybe just...invisible?

9.

I tossed and turned. One side, then the other. My back, my stomach, odd contortions of the two. I kicked off the blankets; pulled them up again and cocooned myself.

Edward. I missed Edward.

"Where are you?" I asked the quiet night.

"Right here."

I gasped. Like sinking into a hot bath, his presence flowed over me. The initial shock, then the ease and warmth. I tried to wrestle out of my blanket. Wait.

"What would actually happen if I hugged you?"

He grinned, but it wasn't a happy expression. Bitter, sad, resigned.

"I don't know. That's never happened to me...but I can't imagine it'd end well."

I nodded.

"You're...you're a..."

"Ghost? Specter? Phantom? Spirit? Gruesome, unnatural visitation from the beyond?"

"You're not gruesome," I murmured, gazing at the curve of his jaw. I wanted to touch it, to run my fingers along it. What would it feel like? Would there be anything there or would my fingers sink right through? What would that feel like?

"Just unnatural," he said.

"Natural is relative." I swallowed, trying to sort out my thoughts. I had to be tactful, but what kind of etiquette was there for existential conversations with ghosts?

"Just ask, Bella. Though I may not have the answers."

"You're a ghost."

"Yes." He shuffled closer to me, and his scent grew stronger. He was hot cocoa, dry socks, a crackling fire: a spot of warmth in the cold.

"How does that even work?"

"Oh, Bella, no one knows." He paused, and I felt his hand reach forward. The tips of his fingers traced my eyebrow, the shell of my ear, the curve of my neck. "Least of all me."

I closed my eyes. The feeling of him touching me was too much. My heart pounded. My face felt flushed. Such a sweet burn. I reveled in it, but it faded. Edward sighed.

"Where were you this week?" I looked at him again, and he flickered. Flickered.

In that moment, the surreality of it all hit me. A ghost. Edward was a ghost, and here I was, in bed with him, asking after him like any boy-who-didn't-call. I didn't know if I should laugh, or cry, or vomit.

But how long until he disappeared again? How long after that until he reappeared? If he reappeared at all.

"I was here, but not here," he said. "I was…around, watching you. But I couldn't—it wouldn't—damn it. This, being...just being, it's a matter of focus, concentration."

His form grew more defined, sharper around the edges. His eyes glowed brighter. "Strong emotion helps," he whispered, "Anger is best, but I don't ever want to be angry around you."

"What do you want?" My hushed voice seemed loud, intrusive in the stillness. I placed my hand on my cheek, over where his should be. My flesh sank right through his, stopping only when it met my own. Instead of overlapping, our hands coexisted. Our atoms mingled, interwoven.

"Bella, I would give up everything—every last moment of this interminable, damned half-existence if I could kiss you, just once."

10.

I couldn't stop thinking about him. Edward.

Downtown, shopping, I saw his face reflected in each storefront windowpane. But when I'd turn, he'd never be there. I searched in sunlight, in shadow. Every face on the avenue held hope, until—once again—it wasn't him. Just everyone else, the unchanged and unchanging population of this town. A place I'd never felt more alone.

The whispering and sighing of my tires in the rain was his quiet voice, murmuring in my ear. I could pretend, just for a second, that he was in the truck with me. We'd chat, just like any couple. The peace of him would descend.

I needed to talk to him.

I took the phone off the cradle and set it in the center of the kitchen table. I'd seen something like this on TV.

"Edward," I said to the phone. "Edward!"

The phone line crackled and hummed. The dial tone droned on.

I even started watching that show, Supernatural. I tried to copy one of the rituals the tall, pretty one did. When I finished the Latin bit, a cool breeze ruffled my hair. I heard a faint chuckle.

Great. Now a ghost was laughing at me.

11.

I walked down the hall in school, head down, hair falling around my face. Edward had been gone for two weeks. I ached, deep in my chest. All this hurt over a boy—a boy who may not even exist.

"Unbelievable," I muttered.

"Talking to yourself again, Gothella?"

I looked up, purely out of reflex. That was a mistake. I sighed. It was too late, I'd already made eye contact.

"What do you want, Lauren?" I spun the dial on my locker as quickly as I could.

"Oh, nothing, just wondering what's new in the exciting world of devil worship."

I sighed again. You'd think she'd have something new to tease me about one of these days. But no. I looked down at my shirt, at the simple black cloth. Black was safe. The comfort and quiet of a night fallen, clear and calm. The embrace of a blanket, under which no one could get you.

I kept my eyes down. English and Calc in, Econ and Spanish out. Zipped up my bag. Closed the locker.

"You still don't have a date to the dance, do you? Not even the special kid with the crutches wants to go with you, apparently."

I stalked off down the hall. Bitch.

The fluorescent lights went pop overhead, blacking out one-by-one. The locker doors rattled. Gusts of cold wind rocketed down the hallway. I shivered and flattened by back against a closet door.

"Lauren, Lauren, Lauren." The terrible voice grew louder, echoing in the cacophony.

"What the fuck?" she screamed, glaring at me. She ran down the hall, chased by unseen screeching.

Edward flashed into view. An electric, sparking black aura surrounded him, bleaching his skin to bone-white. His fists were clenched. His chest heaved. For the first time, he frightened me. Edward looked like a ghost—like a real, haunted-house ghost. A nightmare.

Burning green-wood, smokeless, singed my nose. My hair was standing on end. My legs gave out, and I slid down the door. Little zaps of static stung me.

The phantasmal black clouds faded with the uneasy electricity in the air. Just as they'd gone out, the lights came back on. I gasped in a ragged breath.

Edward turned to me. He knelt a few feet away, his hands on his thighs.

"Like I said. Anger helps."

He shifted one knee a little closer to me, then the other. The second I inhaled the sweet sarsaparilla, my fear melted away. The warmth of him overcame the chill.

"Bella, I'm so sorry." He touched my face—more real and solid and there than ever—and was gone.

12.

I raced home with a lump in my throat. The hurt I felt when he vanished was greater than any terror I'd felt the moment before. And then the strangest, giddy pride. A boy defended my honor.

I missed him when he was gone. I was happiest when he was there. There was a simple word for that simple feeling, but I refused to utter it. Even in my thoughts.

13.

I threw my bedroom door open and called his name. And there he was, standing at my window.

"You came," I said.

"I'll never stop coming for you." He turned slowly, eyes meeting mine, flicking away, and returning.

I walked up to him. He was frozen, still. I swallowed and reached for his hand, unsurprised when my fingers drifted through his. Our matters meshed. Shaky, trembly, I walked back to my bed, and he moved with me. Whether I drew him, or he walked, I didn't know.

"Except when you don't."

He lay down next to me, his hand still within mine. "When I don't, it's because I can't…I want to be with you."

"I want to be with you, too." That word, the one I refused to say to myself, was trying to claw its way up my throat. I couldn't look him in the eyes anymore. Outside the window, a thousand shades of ombré-gray folded upon each other, tumbled down, rushed in front of the early-evening moon. It was barely 4:30, but the sun was setting in the west, and its light was diffused through the clouds. The gray was lit from within. The way Edward was.

Words unsaid weighed too heavy. An unbalanced scale, an untenable inequity. Something broke, and I couldn't hold back my thoughts anymore.

"Edward…I could be with you, if I was like you. I could…I could die, and be like you."

Edward was gone. No flicker, no fade, no blurring-out. Just gone, and I was crushed. I couldn't stop it this time. I sobbed aloud, crying for the boy who could never be.

I bundled up in my quilt and let the misery have me.

14.

Sarsaparilla.

I jolted awake from my fitful doze. My throat was scratchy and my eyes stung.

"Watching you cry and being unable to comfort you is the single most horrible experience of my existence, vicariously or firsthand," he said.

"Wasn't your emotion strong enough?" I choked through a thick throat.

"It was, most certainly…but I was saving it for this moment." His shoulders rose and fell. He looked down at me, his eyes phosphorescent.

"I've met a few other ghosts, my…Bella, most just fractures, slivers of energy barely retaining a human form, let alone personality. Definitely none that were so by either choice or premeditation. There is no guarantee that you'd become like me."

He brushed my hair behind my ear. His touches were so few, so rare; the innocence—and the finality—of the gesture seemed like a waste to me.

"And I can't exist in a world where you don't," he continued. He moved over me, his hand on my cheek, his breath in my soul.

"If you ever need holding, just call my name, and I'll be there. But you shouldn't. I'll never stop looking for you, but never look for me. Never look back. Go on, live on. Love."

Edward leaned forward. He pressed his lips to mine. Each curve of his skin, sweet and soft and warm. A kiss, quick and chaste.

"Love, my love."

15.

The next dry Saturday, I wound my way through the headstones to Gran's. At its base sat a piece of rose quartz crystal, glittering pale pink and gold in the weak winter sun. It was in the shape of a rough heart.

"Hi, Gran. Hi, Edward."

I smiled, tucked the crystal in my bag, and stretched out on my blanket. I opened my copy of Twelfth Night and smiled.


End file.
